


Beneath a Young Sun and in the Eagle's Shadow

by magictodestroy, Strigimorphaes



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Meddling Valar, Mereth Aderthad, Old Friends, Politics, Returning Home, but mostly hiking through the woods, relatively fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2019-07-01 12:06:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15773781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magictodestroy/pseuds/magictodestroy, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Strigimorphaes/pseuds/Strigimorphaes
Summary: Beleg has been away for some time, guarding the border, killing orcs and generally living the rough life. Meanwhile, Mablung has been staying at Doriath's court. Once reunited, they are sent away to the Mereth Aderthad, but despite being headed for a joyful feast, Beleg still sees danger everywhere. Mablung tries to convince him that for once, there is some hope for this strange, changed world - and a chance for a peaceful moment or two in the wilderness.





	Beneath a Young Sun and in the Eagle's Shadow

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang (wow!) with art by tumblr-user magictodestroy (double wow!)  
> I was asked to make something light, but it's the Silm, so there was bound to be at least a little tiny hint of sadness in there.

 artwork: https://magictodestroy.tumblr.com/post/177781388541/beneath-a-young-sun-and-in-the-eagles-shadow-art

 

The sun rose over the hill. It was still a new, strange thing to Mablung, and it hurt his eyes as he watched Doriath’s forest wake to the spring morning. The green crown of an oak tree whispered and shivered around him as he stood perched on one of its sturdy branches. The message on the wind was simple: Elves were marching home. Beleg was coming back from the border.

This was why Mablung had hurried away from the halls of Menegroth and why his usually so impeccable uniform was wrinkled. There were leaves in his hair and dirt under his nails. He had been drinking as he waited for the birdsong to change into that one specific melody that signalled a homecoming. The waterskin laid empty at his feet, now, and the wind swept it off the branch: It hit the ground with a soft thud, startling the sparrows and the elf alike. Mablung shut his eyes and sighed softly at himself. It wasn’t like him to make a sound while he was keeping watch.

Beleg would never have done that.

Marchwardens did not do that.

Mablung opened his eyes again. He could feel the earth moving, vibrations travelling through the roots and along the tree to his hands on the goldenbrown bark. And all the way to Melian’s throne, he assumed, given her connection to the kingdom. In his mind’s eye he saw a hundred thousand buried silver threads going through the ground, making the whole kingdom one big spider web. His king and queen would feel the tremors no matter how small.

The first spears appeared as the returning guards followed the sunlight over the hillside. Mablung saw helmets and loose-flowing hair, mud and blood on their common banner - and no signs of mourning. He inferred that there had been victory, that orcs had been driven further from the Girdle, and that all manner of evil had been given no reason to think Doriath weak. Pride swelled in his chest, and as always, he looked for Beleg.

The archer was the last to appear among the warriors. He was their rear guard gazing ahead at the road to Menegroth.

Mablung smiled and tensed his muscles. The game was on.

He crouched down ever-so-slowly, holding his breath, testing his balance - and noticing, relieved, that he was still steady on his feet. He knew that the elves now passing below him - those who went away to guard the Girdle, sometimes straying beyond it - thought him different. Softer. Unworthy of the in-jokes and tales born in the wilderness because he had chosen to stay closer to Menegroth. 

He thought to himself that he was still sharp enough to find their scents: mud, the dry air above a burned meadow, long-fallen pine needles, the blood of dark creatures. Still unseen though hiding directly above the soldiers on the road, he could see the rusty stains on their tunics and tell from their eyes that they were tired. They were singing cheery songs about the kingdom they had reached, and bawdy songs about the deeds they had achieved, and Beleg was silent at the end of it all.

As he passed beneath Mablung’s tree, he glanced around. He was sharp, too. He could see through any shadow, any brush… But he didn’t look up. Mablung’s smile became a grin, and he flexed his fingers, readying himself for the moment when Beleg went on, thinking himself safe -

Just then, Mablung jumped down directly behind Beleg, turning him around to bring them face to face. Beleg did not resist. He, too, had noticed a familiar scent, or knew the sound of Mablung's boots. There was no moment of confusion. He just looked a little bothered by the fact that had lost.

Mablung declared, triumphantly, “You did not see me this time, either.”

“How many times, now?” asked Beleg.

“Five you have found me, nineteen you have not. I am _still_  in the lead.”

“You’ve an advantage. Ev’ry time I come back tired, while you...”

Mablung fell in step with Beleg as they continued a good ways behind the rest of the group. “And here I thought you were supposed to be Beleg Cúthalion the tireless - no, the _relentless_ captain- “

Beleg smiled. He did look worn, Mablung noticed. There was a new scar on his bare forearm when he adjusted the bow hanging across his shoulders. A change in his gait that would soon reverse, but nevertheless bothered Mablung in the moment. He always looked for wounds when Beleg returned. His worries were washed away, however, when the sound of rushing water greeted them. Just across the bridge lay Menegroth in all its granite glory.

“It seems to me like you had a tough journey,” Mablung said softly.

“Not much worse than usual. Not that the usual’s good up north.” Beleg had fallen back in the tone of voice he used with soldiers, rough and quick and prone to contractions of an elven language meant to be spoken slowly and melodically. This, too, would change after he spent some time at home. For now, Mablung was just glad to hear his voice.

“You deserve to relax now,” Mablung said.

There was a rhythm to their lives as they met, walked together, and then separated again and again each time Beleg went out to attend to his marchwarden-duties. When he came back, they had their rituals. Old patterns to return to, slowly, as their hands met finger by finger. Mablung was breathing easier, now, but still thought about the secret he carried. He had news that he wasn’t sure Beleg would take kindly to. He told himself that it could wait until Beleg had had a change of clothes - and a bath, at the very least. 

He was pulled from his thoughts as Beleg picked a leaf from his hair. “You came in a hurry?”

“I have been busy as well,” Mablung replied. “Things have not been as tense in the court as they could have been, but...  There _is_ some business with the Noldor. Our king has received a messenger that seemed to trouble him, but I am sure you will hear more about it soon enough. Tell me about how you got here. Is the situation improving to the north?”

“Is it the worried general in you who's asking? The orcs still fight like… Like the monstrous spawn of Morgoth they are, I suppose. All those drums and hammers they come with almost drowned me out when I tried to give orders in the thick of it. If I'm hoarse, that'd be why.”

Mablung nodded. Orcs were loud. Usually in a good way, when you could hear them coming from miles away, but he remembered the din of battle and how their monstrous war-cries would echo, rising above the sound of clashing swords. He recalled open mouths, yellow teeth, spit blown into his face alongside angry slurs in the black tongue. People raised their voices in politics too, but elves at least had nicer breath.

“Perhaps the noise made you half deaf,” Mablung suggested. “Given that you did not hear me up in that tree.”

“I’d simply say that you’re as good as I am, still.” Beleg laid an arm around Mablung’s shoulder, and it took the other man a moment before he could give in and lean into it. “No matter if some think you're different now. After centuries, mere decades do not change us. That’s how the world goes. Good thing, too, since there’s still going to be need for your blade with my bow.”

There was a weight to those words that surprised Mablung. He didn’t quite know if he thought them true. The world _did_ change: The sun had come, and in just the twenty years since then, plants and animals had adapted. He himself had learned what a sunburn was the hard way. A decade had been all it took for the Noldor to write their names all over the continent, to make old maps obsolete.

Then again – in Morgoth’s north and other orc-plagued lands, a decade meant nothing. Fifty or sixty or seventy years could go by, and there would still be evil coming southwards in waves. He thanked Melian again for her protection, and at just that moment, Menegroth’s gates opened.

 

Mablung’s abode was deep enough into the complex of caves and twisting tunnels that the sound of the river, though ever-present, was barely audible. Its presence was nevertheless a comfort. He laid his hand on the smooth birchwood of his door.

“I have not have any time to prepare,” he said, aware of how stilted he sounded, before he pushed inside. Most of the room was affected by a soldier’s sense of order. A glowing crystal lamp hung on a hook next to the door, and a sword rested against the wall beneath, both easy to reach at a moment’s notice. The shelves were sorted, his clothes neatly folded. The only mess was a discarded cloak, a pair of boots and a comb laying in a pile beside the bed.

He went to sit on a low sofa, watching as Beleg gravitated towards the table where an untouched meal of bread and dried fruit waited. The day-ration was still packaged in linen, allowing Mablung to grab it if he needed to leave the place at once. There was also a glass bottle as dark red as the wine within it. 

Beleg glanced from the bottle to Mablung, asking wordlessly for permission.

“What’s mine is yours,” Mablung said, leaning back.

By the door, a bow had joined the sword. Beleg’s quiver hung on the coat hook that was so often empty.

Sighing, Beleg sat down beside Mablung on the couch, the bottle still in his hand and now half-empty. “I missed that,” he said. “Good wine runs out quick. Remember how the water tasted way up north?”

“Iron and slags.”

“Well, it’s worse now. Somehow. _That’s_ the only change _there_ ” Beleg took another swig. His eyes flickered around the room. He was doubtlessly doing his best to figure out what had transpired at court in his absence, as if the unmade bed could tell him whether Mablung was getting enough sleep.

Mablung said, “Everything is fine here.”

Here, behind the Girdle and the river and the rock. Here, where Beleg leaned against him. He was light - Mablung felt again his lover’s terrible habit of not letting himself be heavy and relaxed. Beleg was far too used to frantic scouting and fighting for that. It was a matter of lulling him into a sense of security again before he could grow heavy and slow. Beleg put the bottle to his lips again.

“Wait, there’s something you should know before you drink any mo-”

The bottle was empty before Mablung could finish his sentence.

Beleg blinked. “What?”

“You have an audience with our king.”

 

* * *

 

Beleg adjusted his cape. In the fifteen minutes he had been standing outside the door, waiting, he had convinced himself that he would, in fact, talk _better_ with the wine in his system. Yes. Being just a little tipsy might make him look friendly and open and positive. Probably. Kind of. And there came the herold to let him in.

The archer had seen a lot of impressive things: Waterfalls and mountains overwhelming in their natural beauty; the first rising of the sun and moon and the lamplight before them; ice-floes capable of crushing a man; Mablung’s wild, determined look so full of love the night they first confessed to one another. Thingol and Melian radiated a bit of all of it.

Kneeling came instinctively. Ceremonial greetings were exchanged, and at least Beleg was on sure footing here, for he remembered the phrases and intonations. The words echoed between stone pillars. Afterwards, Thingol rose from his throne as Beleg rose from the floor.

The king’s voice was slow, his movements careful. Some blamed it on the time he had stood in front of Melian while all those years passed him by, but whatever the cause, he seemed perpetually moving at his very own pace. He stared too long at his guest, or too briefly. Walked too fast or too slowly through the room until he stood quite close to Beleg. His regal cape was patterned with vines and leaves, his crown aglow with strange magic.

“I am afraid to say that we are sending you away again,” he said.

“So soon?” Beleg asked. He still had to find new arrows, to fix that broken bracer and...

Yellow light shone on Thingol’s face. “This time, you will not be going with other guards.”

Beleg waited. Melian was silent, but listening intently – most likely not only to her husband, but to her whole kingdom. In the quiet, Beleg wondered if he would be facing orcs or something worse. Morgoth’s arsenal was ever-growing. Balrogs and fire, ghosts and ice…

“We have received,” Thingol continued, “an invitation to a party.”

Before he knew what he was doing, Beleg raised an eyebrow. “And… you’re sending _me_?”

“You and Mablung, both of you being familiar faces to the Noldor. You are renowned enough that your presence will make an impression. At the same time, you will not be sending the wrong message the way a larger number of people would.”

“Elu Thingol,” Beleg began, but he was cut off by the king: 

“We do not trust their talk of peace after all they have wrought.”

While Thingol spoke, Melian tilted her head, and for a brief moment, she and Beleg locked eyes. A shiver went down his spine. She saw something in him – and perhaps also ahead of him. He knelt again. He couldn’t help it.

“I am certain now,” she said. “Send him.”

 

The moment Beleg walked through the door into Mablung’s rooms again, he was met by the sight of two packed bags.

“So. I took the liberty of getting everything ready,” Mablung said. “An impromptu vacation. The recreation you need, perhaps.”

Beleg sighed. “Or just part of the job.”

“Then I am part of your job, now. Walk with me. There are horses already waiting.”

Beleg lifted the rucksack and looked back over his shoulder. He was used to companions following five steps behind him and was taken aback by Mablung being right by his side. His head hummed with the way Melian had said the word _certain._

The horses waited on the bridge above the ravine. He almost disliked the sight of them. Would have preferred a slower way of travelling so that he could have time to explain all his thoughts to Mablung - or maybe just stay quiet for a while and regain his voice.

They had still not held one another. Beleg promised himself that they soon would. He slung his bow, Belthronding, over his shoulder and swung himself onto the horse. Pressed his heels into its sides, bade it run. Before he knew it, his heart was racing and he and Mablung were like the wind headed west. Woods and orchards passed him by, golden, red and green. Leaves made lace-patterns of shadow on the path that cut between nettles and ferns. So much life thrived here that it spilled into the streams, filling them with water lilies.

 

They rode on through the day and into the night. The horses were swift and tireless creatures that let them reach the Girdle and go beyond it by the time it was early morning but still dark, and then Beleg was the first to slow down. They could both feel a slight change in the air and under their feet.

“It is like drinking mulled wine with one spice missing,” Mablung said. “Same land, and yet a different feeling without Melian’s protection over it.”

“Mhm,” was Beleg’s reply.

Indeed the land did not look much different. Beleg spotted more wolf-tracks and footprints the further they went, and the wind grew a little colder, but that was the extent of it for now. It was a summer night, still light for elven eyes.

Recently, Beleg had found it harder and harder to remember how twilight and night had looked before, when the light had come from a lamp. That light had been silver, and perfectly even - not like now, when the phases of the moon made some nights darker than others. It was silly that he should forget, given that he had spent hundreds of years with the lamplight and only two decades with the moon... But perhaps it was better to forget.

He had carved a calendar into the leather of his belt, using a hunting knife to make crosses that marked full moons, when the orcs were less likely to attack, and new moons, when they became brave. He ran his fingers along the worn, frayed edge.

Mablung, brushing stray hairs from his own face, looked concerned. As if his intention was to lighten the mood, he rummaged through his bag for a moment before saying, “By the way, I found a replacement for your broken bracer.”

It was a piece of armor with more decoration than what Beleg was used to, but he took it gladly all the same. It fit perfectly. He smiled at Mablung before reaching into his own pack.

“And I remembered the ribbon you forgot.” Beleg threw the object in question, and Mablung caught it. “Centuries, and that bad habit hasn’t changed either.”

“At least I forget the same thing every time. You forget different things. It makes it harder to help you.”

“Which is why I’m glad you do it anyway..”

Mablung got to work tying his hair back.

“You look better that way,” Beleg commented. “And it makes me less worried that you'll cut your hair off while swinging your sword."

 

A while later, they let the horses run back to Doriath. They were entering a wood where elves had seldom traveled for many years, and between the trees, on steep rocky paths and across rivers, it was faster and safer for a pair of rangers to travel quietly on foot. 

Beleg and Mablung went on, pressing through the underbrush. The ferns were wet with dew beneath their boots. The blackberries were not yet ripe. The wind was the only noise - until something rustled in the shadows to their right.

Beleg turned at once, bow drawn, arrow nocked. Saw nothing but leaves and bark. Heard only Mablung’s voice, half whisper and half a shared thought: “Did you see anything?”

Shaking his head, Beleg lowered his weapon.

“But there is something.”

“Yes.”

Beleg exhaled slowly. The air was colder. A breeze awakened and wound its way between the tree trunks, and he sensed no smell of fur or steel. Only flowers and wet earth. He heard water up ahead.

“Let’s walk,” he said, keeping his voice low. Mablung’s shadow overlapped with his own.

Still guarded, Beleg followed the sound to a slow-flowing river. It was an easy matter to jump from rock to rock across it, and on the other side, he landed on soft moss. The forest was less dense here, and he could look up at last and see stars instead of leaves. He also saw that they now stood on a hill, and that it sloped softly downwards into a valley hemmed in on the other three sides by distant mountains.

“Our friends are out there,” Beleg said. “The Noldor, I mean.”

There were no more sounds coming from the shadows. It felt safer, anyhow, to be standing in starlight. 

Mablung sat down cross-legged in the grass, but did not put away his sword. “We could take a rest. Just a brief few hours, yes? Enough to be ready for them.”

“As ready as we can get.” Beleg sat down by Mablung’s side. “We both know that we do not _need_ to stop yet.”

“Not for miles,” Mablung replied, and leant back with a content sigh. “Remember when we ran along the Esgalduin?”

“It was the warmest summer Doriath ever saw.”

“And when we reached the western border at the end - “

“And gave this arrow its name.” Beleg pulled Dailir from its place in his quiver. His lucky charm. “I’ll take first watch.”

“Please do.”

Beleg wanted to reach out and lay a hand on Mablung’s cheek then. A fine layer of dust, pollen and sweat lay on his skin. He could have gone further, then, but something held Beleg back: His mind was still elsewhere, preoccupied with the sense of being pursued. He whispered instead:

“I have missed you.”

“Likewise,” came Mablung’s reply. He was already covered by his cape, using it as a blanket as he laid on the ground. He smiled with closed eyes and added, “And I love you.” He said it like it was the plainest thing in the world. Perhaps Beleg was strange for still finding those words powerful after all that time. He drew one knee to his chest and re-counted his arrows. Held Dailir again and tested the point against his fingertip. Listened and felt, suddenly, Mablung taking his wrist and pulling his left hand, holding it.

They were quiet for a while.

Beleg peered into the woods. A strange, but dim glow appeared center of the clearing, blue and purple along the river. He squeezed Mablungs hand, a warning. The breeze made small waves on the water. It took Beleg a while to realize where the glow came from: The river was full of rocks where moss and lichen grew, spreading weak light both over and under the surface. These growths had gorged themselves on sunlight and shone now, bioluminescent, in the night. The weakest echo of glowing trees.  

“Such small plants.” Mablung opened his eyes slightly, taking in the sight. “Strange, but not evil.”

A rustling sound came again from the tree crowns above Beleg, but it was hard to tell if it was the wind or something living, moving, waiting.

“Do you think they will be good?” Beleg asked, now that he knew his companion was not sleeping. “The Noldor? Their high king and the Feanorians?”

“Yes,” came the reply. “Because we must believe that. We must come in good faith.”

“Why? Thingol does not trust them.”

“But like him, you might see danger where there is none.”

Beleg remained upright, listening for the sound he had heard earlier. If he could see a straight path north across the valley, Morgoth’s misshapen creations could see one south. His suspicion grew until he was certain that they were not alone. And yet, Mablung slept.

 

In the morning, they hid all traces of their passing and went further up the ridge, hoping to see the valley on the other side sooner rather than later. Twice more, the sound of rustling trees disturbed them. They kept their voices low, their steps quiet. It was taxing, but Beleg preferred this to how he was sure he would walk when they arrived: There would be too many eyes on him, too many voices all around. Strange dialects and all sorts of things unsaid about kinslayings and silmarils.

Mablung filled him in about what had gone on at court while they walked. He recounted hunts and festivals. If one could lean against a voice like a pillow, that was what Beleg did. They were taking their time. The second night, when Mablung took first watch, he talked for a long while about a poem he had heard, and Beleg slept a little.

He woke when something winged passed over the camp. A tree rustled as if it landed there, and Beleg imagined clawed and sharp-beaked terrors. Mablung was slumped over, but blinked awake as he too felt the gusts of wind.

“For the record, I did not sleep,” Mablung said. “I was rehearsing a speech.”

“There’re bigger concerns in the dark beyond the Girdle.”

“You say that now, but tomorrow in front of the ambassadors…”

“Shh.” Beleg pointed into the brush. “Let me investigate. Keep still.”

Receiving no answer from Mablung, Beleg stood up. He felt a presence nearby and followed the feeling into the shadow of two great oaks growing on the edge of the clearing, the edge of the cliff, the edge of the circle of light born from the campfire’s embers. The branches were wide and sturdy, and so he began climbing, hoping to get a better view of his surroundings from the top of the tree. He felt light as he swung himself to the first branch and felt for hand-holds in the bark. A burst of adrenaline washed over him. The feeling was an old friend telling him to get ready to fight whatever evil had followed them…

He looked back over his shoulder to see Mablung staring.

Onwards and up. Pale leaves brushed against Beleg’s bare arms like ghostly fingers. He climbed through thin spiderwebs that broke around his hands. At last, he poked his head up, as high as he could go, and tried to discern the shapes in the dark.

There, steel-gray and sapphire-blue against the night’s bleak backdrop, sat an eagle. Beleg froze on the spot, staring into its eyes. He could feel the regal bird looking into him, a feeling far too similar to when he had been face to face with Melian, and he bit down on his tongue.

It was a relief when the eagle turned from him to look instead at the world below - the campsite, the hill, the valley and all the way out to the mountains.

Beleg whispered Mablung’s name. It took only a heartbeat before Mablung was just below the tree, looking up.

“Yes?” he asked.

“We are not alone.” Thr words that Beleg had feared saying were now sweet in his mouth. “Praise the Valar, we are not alone here.”

“Just as I said.”

“What?”

“You saw danger where there was none.” Mablung spread his arms wide open and added, “Now come down. Jump.”

Beleg looked back to the eagle. It blinked slowly, but if Beleg was meant to draw a message from it, he did not understand it. He did not know what to do but bow his head in a curt gesture of respect before he leapt.

Befuddled as he was, the jump was not his best and the landing was heavy  - but Mablung could handle it, could catch him, still strong enough to hold him tight. For a long while, neither of them let go.

 

“Finally, I get to hold you,” Beleg sighed. “Why not earlier?”

“You were worried,” Mablung replied. “But see? There was no enemy in the bushes. I told you the world is better than you think. Safer. The Valar like you, and _I_ like you, so how bad can it be?”

“The valar have strange ways.”

“Then let’s not think about them.”

“Not them. Not the Noldor. Not anyone, until dawn.”

 

They crept back to the campfire. For once, Beleg felt himself become heavy and tired, like all his instincts had been drowned in honey and covered in down, so that he could relax and let Mablung pull him onto the soft moss. For a while, Beleg laid with Mablung’s warm arms around him. Their bow and blade lay crossed, still within reach but as good as forgotten.

Both saw the colors return as dawn came. Brown and green crept up the pillars of wood, arrived in dots and dashes on the grass as the sun rose.

“Look,” Mablung whispered. “On the far side of the valley.”

They could see through the leaves now, past the blackberry bushes and down the hillside. Beleg could tell apart the shimmer of a still lake from that of trees with silver-coloured leaves. He could see the distant city of tents spiralling out from a few central buildings standing ivory-white against the green. The feast was waiting for them, foreign banners casting long shadows across the meadow.

 

* * *

 

It took no time at all to reach the campsite, the city and their kin. Mablung thought he saw the eagle in the distance as he crossed the plain. Beleg stared straight ahead, and Mablung quietly told him that everything would surely go well. He had that kind of feeling in his chest, like a premonition. He liked to believe in people being able to sense the future - at least when they sensed good things.

There was plenty of life in the camp where travellers had pitched tents woven with rich thread, tapestries in their own right. Foods from all over Beleriand simmered. Lanterns glowed. The sun watched it all, spreading sunburns and shadows. There was a central building where Beleg and Mablung were soon led. As ambassadors, they were given the expected warm welcome and sideways glances on the way.

The canvas was pulled aside, causing a moment of unwilling breathlessness as Mablung stepped inside. A High King inspired that reaction. Fingolfin, broad-shouldered and tall even by elven standards, waited in a silver robe with white gems gleaming in his hair. He was drinking cold water and offered Mablung a cup while the marchwarden was still mute. Beleg kept to the back of the tent.

“You look like your journey went well,” Fingolfin said. “There is a blessed glow around you.”

Mablung stepped forward. “It could not have gone otherwise. I believe the powers that be desire that this meeting of peace should be a success, and my companion, Beleg Cuthalion, is one of the best amongst the elves of Doriath. I trust him completely, and… I was going to say something about how our bond keeps us strong and safe, and that I wish the same for our peoples, High King  - but perhaps I should not speak too quickly on behalf of my entire country. Personally, at least, I feel that way.” 

Fingolfin smiled and said, "We will speak more in the coming days, I hope."

"So do we," Beleg said, looking like he had surprised himself by speaking up. 

Fingolfin’s eyes, though kind, were hard. To Mablung, all the Noldor were like steel and silver - fair metal, but cold and hard to the touch. They were not a people like yielding branches and sunwarmed wood. But the king spoke of hope, and seemed to have the strength to see that promise through.

After everything was said and done, Mablung did not remember half the things he or Beleg had said in the tent. He thought instead about what Beleg had told him long before that: _Decades do not change us._ Walking down the street between festival tents, Mablung hoped that it was wrong. Here, surrounded by song in different languages and dialects, he wanted a world made in centuries to change in the span of years - or days. He wanted to believe that time could wipe away all the hard edges and old grudges. Everywhere should be like this place, bathed in the sunlight and full of promises.

With Beleg, he went back into the sprawl of people, a crowd that gathered here and there, dispersed and was reformed each time with new rumors and recipes and songs exchanged between strangers. Ambassadors walked with common folk. Mablung wanted to be seen by them all. Now nobody could say that Thingol had not sent anyone for the feast. In a square beneath a lantern, he asked Beleg to kiss him. They had delivered their message - they _were_ the message, a moment in a sunbeam, a summer where they both had hope for the winters to come.

 


End file.
